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| 7/12/2011
by
HRDQ
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| July 2011 |
Legacy Leadership: Growing Tomorrow’s Leaders Today
 Typically, the term “legacy” is something that’s left behind. But what if leaders could live their legacies—right now, in real time—so that their visions for the future were evident in everything they do, every day? Think about the impact it could have on an organization’s success—its people, products, and revenue. That’s Legacy Leadership™.
Legacy Leadership is not about building things. It’s about building people. Legacy Leadership is not a leadership style. Rather, it’s a life system and a way of being, not just doing. It’s a philosophy, model, and a proven process for bringing out individual best and developing other leaders in the organization, establishing organizational leadership culture, and positively impacting the bottom line.
A Model for Legacy Leadership
Legacy Leadership makes the complex notion of leadership simple. It boils down critical competencies into five basic practices that have immediate applicability to every possibility and challenge leaders must face. Legacy Leadership embraces both vision and accountability for results, methods for creating an environment for team success, strong and dependable relationships, and maximizing the talents of diverse perspectives and strengths.
The Basic Assumptions of Legacy Leadership
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Legacy is created when leaders develop leaders, who in turn develop other leaders for a multi-level maximization of leadership abilities and characteristics.
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Legacy resides in others rather than the leader.
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Leaders have a need for a comprehensive model that fulfills every skill they need throughout their careers.
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Leaders serve others first, then themselves.
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Legacy Leaders are holders of vision and values, creators of trust that encourages innovation and creativity, influencers of inspiration and leadership, advocates for differences and community, and finally, calibrators of responsibility and accountability.
The Five Best Practices of Legacy Leadership
Best Practice 1 – Holder of Vision and Values™
Legacy leaders are conscious guardians of both personal and organizational vision and values. It becomes a part of who they are, and it guides all they do. They “walk the talk,” align daily responsibilities with organizational goals, and place importance on developing others.
Best Practice 2 – Creator of Collaboration and Innovation™
Collaboration and innovation don’t happen on its own. Legacy leaders are creators who cultivate an environment where both skills can flourish. Leaders ensure high levels of trust, develop processes to build and capture that collaboration, and encourage team spirit.
Best Practice 3 – Influencer of Inspiration and Leadership™
Intentional influencers understand that everything they do affects others. They are self-inspired and they know what inspires others. It requires connecting personally with others and valuing them both individually and professionally. These leaders understand how to assemble a nurturing structure and environment.
Best Practice 4 – Advocator of Differences and Community™
Leaders who are advocators are courageous enough to take a stand—and know how to stay standing. They have a well-defined sense of right and wrong as well as the internal strength to defend it, regardless of the consequences. Becoming a successful advocator requires a keen desire to know others as people, not as mere resources, and to understand that when one person grows and succeeds, all do.
Best Practice 5 – Calibrator of Responsibility and Accountability™
Being a calibrator of responsibility and accountability is about setting standards. These leaders are vigilant, thoughtful, and flexible, with a constant eye on the target. They are crystal clear about their values. In other words, they know the difference between right and wrong—in both their personal and professional lives—and they measure all behaviors against these beliefs.
Now, like no other time in history, there is a need to develop strong leadership abilities. Using a model with proven success for both the best of times and worst of times, Legacy Leadership embodies a compelling and comprehensive set of competencies and skills. Legacy Leaders® lead the way for others to follow to the edge of current development—and beyond.
Source: The Legacy Leadership Competency Inventory.
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The Toughest Supervisor Challenges and How to Overcome Them
 Every job has its challenges, from office politics to mastering new skills and managing a full workload. But for supervisors, there is no challenge greater than managing other people. Sometimes it’s a thrilling experience that offers a rewarding sense of accomplishment. Other times, it’s a wild roller coaster ride filled with unexpected twists and turns.
When dealing with issues such as employee performance, personality clashes, and conflict, the truth is that there are no quick fixes. Successful supervisors know it takes time to do what’s best for the long-term success of the organization, its employees, and even themselves. They also know that they can overcome the toughest challenges when they exercise three key skills: realism, restraint, and resolve.
Resolving Conflicts between Employees
Conflict between employees is a major hassle for supervisors. While short-term strategies such as imposing resolutions or telling employees to work out issues on their own may provide some immediate relief, these approaches usually leave conflicts to linger. It takes considerable time and effort—as well as the help of the supervisor—to resolve conflict constructively. Supervisors need to establish ground rules and mediate the process using a collaborative framework that involves all parties.
Dealing with Problem Employees
Employees who are rude. Employees who gossip or whine. Know-it-alls. Sound familiar? We’re talking about employees who stir up trouble yet continue to produce results for the organization. Supervisors need to nip these behaviors quickly before they take a toll on others. Sometimes this requires supervisors to look at their own actions and determine whether or not they are contributing to the problem. Other times supervisors must help employees to see how their poor behavior affects those around them. And sometimes it requires documentation and disciplinary action.
Dealing with Personal Problems
Employees are human, and that means personal issues such as illness, grief, and financial stress are bound to impact performance from time to time. When absenteeism, tardiness, and lack of productivity are the result of personal issues, supervisors have to balance their responsibilities to the organization with their desire to be understanding, sensitive, and helpful.
Discipline and Termination
Having to fire an employee is possibly at or near the top of the list of most supervisors’ toughest challenges. From establishing proactive guidelines for performance and conduct to preparing for the actual termination meeting, there are simple steps managers can take to help them minimize stress, reduce risk, and handle the situation effectively.
Dealing with Layoffs
Layoffs are difficult for everyone—the employees who lose their jobs, the employees who remain, and the supervisors who have to deal with it all. Being realistic about the effects of layoffs, maintaining restraint in dealing with elevated emotions, and resolving to stick with decisions are important skills for supervisors to act in the best interest of the organization.
Crisis Management
Crisis is inevitable whether it’s natural disasters, technical failures, economic crashes, or even violence. Crisis events share similar characteristics—surprise, uncertainty, tension, and a lack of control. When it occurs, people’s instincts are to overreact by becoming angry, upset, afraid, or panicked. What your employees need is supervisory leadership that exhibits realism, restraint, and resolve.
Supervisors face tough challenges every day. Helping them to exercise three key skills—realism, restraint, and resolve—facilitates their ability to do the right thing, guide their decision making, and ensure the success of their employees and the organization.
Source:The Toughest Supervisor Challenges.
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“Think of negotiation as a cooperative enterprise: common interests must be sought; negotiation is a behavioral process, not a game; in good negotiation, everybody wins something.”
– Gerard Nierenberg
The Fine Balance of Negotiating
 Negotiating isn’t just for professionals. People negotiate every day, whether they recognize it or not. It can be as simple as deciding where to go to lunch with co-workers, or where to go on a family vacation.
But negotiating is more than just winning. Effective negotiators know that the aim is to build productive relationships—not to crush the opponent. As a trainer, it’s important to help individuals in your organization to first understand why this balance is vital and then learn how to achieve it in any negotiating situation.
Outcome vs. Relationship
When two people negotiate, there are two primary concerns, even if they’re not on a conscious level. The first is the outcome, or substance, of the agreement. The second is the relationship with the other party.
Maybe you’ve negotiated with someone who is determined to drive the best bargain at any cost. In this case, only the outcome—getting the best deal—is what matters. And sometimes people go to the other extreme. They make little or no effort to directly influence the outcome of the negotiation because they are willing to accept whatever can be gained.
In addition to the outcome, the second concern is the relationship with the other party. Questions such as, “Does this person think my behavior offensive?” and “Will this person want to negotiate with me in the future?” are two examples.
Concern for the outcome and the relationship are universally shared by all negotiators, regardless of the objectives of the negotiations. But these concerns are not expressed independently or to the same degree. One interacts with the other to produce a pattern or a “negotiating style.”
Five Characteristic Negotiating Styles
One’s negotiating style depends on the degree of emphasis placed on the concern for outcome and the relationship.
Defeat
The Defeat style is characterized by a high degree of concern for the outcome and a low degree of concern for the relationship. Defeating the other party at any cost becomes the negotiator’s goal. Win-lose competition, pressure, intimidation, and adversarial relationships are common behaviors of this style.
Withdraw
A low degree of concern for both the outcome and the relationship produces a Withdraw behavior pattern. Negotiators simply remove themselves from the negotiation. This style is distinguished by feelings of powerlessness, indifference, resignation, and surrender.
Accommodate
When negotiators focus their efforts on building compatible relationships as a way of negotiating, the Accommodate style emerges. Playing to the other party’s needs becomes the strategy. It’s characterized by efforts to promote harmony, avoidance of differences, and placing relationships above the fairness of the outcome.
Compromise
A moderate degree of concern for both the outcome and the relationship is the Compromise style of negotiating. Finding an acceptable agreement is the objective of these negotiators, and they do so through conflict reduction instead of synergistic problem solving. Meeting halfway and trade-offs are common behaviors.
Collaborate
The Collaborate and Compromise styles have similar patterns. However, collaborators have a high degree of concern for both the outcome and the relationship, whereas compromisers are more moderate. The Collaborate style is distinguished by searching for common interests, problem solving, and mutually acceptable outcomes. Working to achieve a win-win outcome is the main goal of these negotiators.
Which Negotiating Style is Best?
Variations of each of these styles may be appropriate in certain scenarios, and sometimes a negotiator may want to use a specific style for a particular type of negotiation. For example, if the other party truly has a superior power over the subject of the negotiation, a Withdraw stance might well be the only feasible course of action if agreement is to be reached.
However, the style that most consistently produces the best results is the Collaborate style. If satisfying mutual needs is of paramount concern to the parties and they can harness problem-solving strategies to satisfy these needs, then both the outcome of the negotiation and the relationship of the parties will benefit.
Source: Strike Fighter.
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The Five Rs of Effective Listening
 Being a good listener has many benefits, especially in the workplace. It increases productivity, helps solve problems, improves the ability to influence, and even builds relationships. But how many times have you heard the people around your organization say things such as, “just another minute” or “I’m busy”? Statements like this are a symptom of ineffective listening skills—and poor communication overall. As a trainer, the first step to improving listening skills is to help others learn how to make themselves available to listen. Teach them how to take the initiative to reach out to those around them and invite a discussion.
There are five steps to active listening called the “Five Rs”: Ready, Receive, Review, Respond, and Remember. Here’s a look at each one in detail.
Ready
Most people think they can do other activities while participating in a conversation, but multitasking is the enemy of active listening. The starting point is to prepare to be an effective listener by eliminating distractions such as noise, other people, cell phones, and music.
Getting ready to be an effective leader also requires mental preparation. A lot of distraction stems from the fact that we listen and process information much faster than we speak. The average person speaks at a rate of 120-150 words per minute, yet most people are able to comprehend at a rate of approximately 400 words per minute. This gap creates extra time in the listener’s mind, which can lead to wandering thoughts and distraction. It’s important to recognize when this occurs and quickly refocus on the speaker.
Receive
Once the listener is prepared and ready to listen, the second step is to receive the message. While that may sound simple enough, the message being sent by the speaker isn’t just words. It also involves body language, tone of voice, facts, and feelings. For instance, how do the words being spoken compare to the way they sound? Do the speaker’s words match his or her body language?
Verbal responses such as “uh-huh” and “go on” are an excellent way for listeners to indicate to speakers that they are listening. Equally important are nonverbal responses such as head nodding and open hand gestures. Lastly, it is important for people to learn how to avoid interrupting speakers. This only frustrates speakers and causes them to repeat their stories from the beginning. It also limits how well their message is understood.
Review
This step involves listeners evaluating what they’ve heard. It requires the use of critical thinking skills to separate facts from opinions. But beware: people often state their opinions as facts, and differentiating between the two can sometimes be challenging.
One of the most difficult skills for listeners to employ is to identify their personal filters. We all have them—age, gender, culture, experience, and so on. Ignoring these filters is what causes people to be biased listeners. When personal filters are recognized, it enables listeners to dismiss faulty assumptions and interpretations.
Respond
Silence. It’s the key component of the fourth step, Respond. It’s sort of like white space on a page. It makes words stand out. When listeners are able to develop this skill, it gives them time to carefully consider what they’re going to say before they say it.
When it is time to respond, listeners should paraphrase what they thought they heard. This gives speakers an indication that their message was—or was not—delivered as it was intended. Messages such as “What I’m hearing is…” and “It sounds like…” are two examples that can help to improve communication.
Remember
The final step for listeners is to remember what’s been heard and move it from short-term to long-term memory. Speakers play a role in this by making their message memorable. But if they don’t, there are ways for listeners to do it themselves. Creating associations, visualization, taking notes, and using the senses are all examples of ways to improve memory skills.
Most people think they’re good listeners. But just about everyone can benefit from listening skills training. The Five Rs are an excellent starting point.
Source: Effective Listening Skills.
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HRDQ donates to the Southern Relief Fund
Disaster struck the southern United States last Spring. In just two days, 300 tornadoes ravaged six states, killing hundreds of people and displacing thousands of families. The impact of this tragedy will affect its victims for months—maybe even years—to come.
Just like many other organizations all over the United States, HRDQ wanted to help. We made a donation to the American Red Cross relief efforts. But we knew it wasn’t enough.
Throughout the month of May, HRDQ donated 10% of every Reproducible Training Library (RTL) sale to the Southern Relief long-term recovery efforts. Whether our clients were aware of it or not, their purchases helped to provide those in need with hot meals, comfort kits, infant supplies, cleanup equipment, and emotional support.
The American Red Cross is continuing its relief operations and will respond as demands emerge and change. Together there’s more we can do, too. Visit the American Red Cross to find out how you can help.
Bradford Glaser
HRDQ President and CEO
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Free Trainer Education Series
Free Webinars—Register Today!
 
Leadership Unlimited: Removing Barriers to Your Potential
with Roger Pearman
July 13, 2011, 2:00-3:00pm EDT
Using Courage to Transform the Workplace
with Bill Treasurer
August 10, 2011, 2:00-3:00pm EDT
Employee Engagement as a Competitive Strategy
with Sharon Gazda
September 14, 2011, 2:00-3:00pm EDT
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< Insight Newsletter Fall 2011 |
Insight Newsletter May 2011 >
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